The Mail revealed earlier this week that one plane full of passengers had to hand over £20,000 in cash to fund part of their journey back to Birmingham Airport after a Comtel Air flight was grounded in Austria because of cash flow problems.

THE Civil Aviation Authority has negotiated special airfares to bring back holidaymakers stranded in India after the collapse of a UK-based travel agency.

The Mail revealed earlier this week that one plane full of passengers had to hand over £20,000 in cash to fund part of their journey back to Birmingham Airport after a Comtel Air flight was grounded in Austria because of cash flow problems.

The 180 travellers had endured a four-day delay to catch their return flight from Amritsar, in India. Austrian-registered Comtel cancelled all its flights between Amritsar and Birmingham on Thursday when Skyjet in Essex said it had filed for bankruptcy.

Passengers who are still stranded are being offered special rates on BMI, which the UK Civil Aviation Authority agreed to refund.

Comtel said it was owed money by Skyjet UK, one of its travel agents, and had not been able to pay its carrier for two weeks as a result.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said: “We are organising special fares on BMI flights back to England that they will be able to take and then claim money back from the Civil Aviation Authority to repay for that.”